A truly deserved Mercury Prize win for Leeds based four-piece English Teacher. A band that wholly represent the power of investing in our beloved music scene from the grassroots up. The Leeds-formed four-piece, fronted by Lily Fontaine, impressed the judges with their “winning lyrical mix of surrealism and social observation, alongside a subtle way of wearing its musical innovations lightly”, on songs such as “I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying”, “Albatross” and “Broken Biscuits”.
“We just thought we’d make a band,” Fontaine said, while her bandmates paid tribute to members of the Leeds music community, including the Brudenell Music Social Club’s owner, Nathan Clark.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
A record brimming with the personality and originality to revitalise British guitar music, it has been a real pleasure celebrating their debut album ‘This Could Be Texas’ as a Rough Trade Album of the Month, Album of the Year So Far 2024 title and now a Mercury Prize-winning album.
English Teacher perform “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab” on Later… with Jools Holland.
One of the most exciting emergent acts in Yorkshire since the start of the 2020s, Leeds-based band English Teacher present their debut EP ‘Polyawkward’. Featuring ace 2021 single ‘Good Grief’ and new track ‘A55’, this five-track collection showcases Lily Fontaine’s sharp punk song writing and the group’s concentrated, enthusiastic post-punk energy.
Such an adventurous record which flows beautifully, with so many ideas and sounds woven together…I can hear influencers such as stereolab , moonshake , 90,s shoegaze & baggy dance beats , hey it’s all happening. Hearing this record for the 1st time, there are constant surprises on where Dummy go to next..
At times, sublimely beautiful & then an attack of full-on dirty guitar sounds on a filthy krautrock-in-beat . Fabulous stuff from the whole band . Dummy is a rock band from Los Angeles comprised of Alex Ewell, Emma Maatman, Nathan O’Dell, and Joe Trainor. Their debut full-length “Mandatory Enjoyment” (Trouble in Mind Records) arrived in late 2021, becoming one of the year’s sleeper hits and garnering praise from Pitchfork, Stereogum, and more.
Coming out of lockdown, the band spent two years touring in support of the record, and it is this transformational experience that pulses through “Free Energy”, the exhilarating follow-up to “Mandatory Enjoyment”.
A creatively restless band, Dummy (Ewell: drums, synths, bass; Maatman: vocals, synths, organ; O’Dell: vocals, guitar, organ; Trainor: guitar, bass, synths) wanted to get harder, dancier, more psychedelic for their next record. This meant applying explorative potentials of electronic textures to the elemental qualities of rock i.e. more vocal loops, sampling, more crazy rhythms, and playful synths – but make those samples of Trainor’s guitar, let Maatman sing bolder, experiment with using cold mechanical elements in warm and sparkly ways, and lean harder into traditional-yet-still-awesome forms of rock guitar experimentation like feedback The result is a record that celebrates music’s ability to move the body, whether that be through a teeth-rattling wall of MBV-esque noise, a sticky pop chorus, or a joyous drum machine—or, if you’re Dummy, maybe all of them in the same song.
Pop music has always been a big part of Dummy’s sound and it manifests in different ways all over “Free Energy” the bubbly synth sequence made with a Korg EM1 popping all over “Nullspace,” the revved-up drone-pop inspired by second and third wave Dunedin Sound bands like Look Blue Go Purple and Dadamah, and the motorik beat powering “Nine Clean Nails,” perhaps the most confidently pop song Dummy has ever recorded and one that exemplifies “Free Energy’s” balancing of live performance intensity with electronic augmentations, the dancier rhythmic elements created out of a drum loop recorded by Ewell while the bridge recalls the Feelies with call-and-response guitars from O’Dell and expressive vocals from Maatman.
“Free Energy” also features guest appearances from Oakland-based saxophonist and electroacoustic artist Cole Pulice (Moon Glyph) contributes saxophone and wind synths and Jen Powers of Powers / Rolin Duo (Astral Editions, Feeding Tube Records).
“Luck and Strange” is David Gilmour’s first solo album in nearly a decade. Charlie Andrew takes over as co-producer, after Gilmour released a pair of LPs with Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music. ‘Luck and Strange’ was recorded over five months in Brighton and London and is Gilmour’s first album of new material in nine years. The record was produced by David and Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with ALT-J and Marika Hackman. Of this new working relationship, David says, “We invited Charlie to the house, so he came and listened to some demos, and said things like, “Well, why does there have to be a guitar solo there?” and “Do they all fade out? Can’t some of them just end?”. He has a wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine. He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”
The majority of the album’s lyrics have been composed by Polly Samson, Gilmour’s co-writer and collaborator for the past thirty years. Samson says of the lyrical themes covered on ‘Luck and Strange’, “It’s written from the point of view of being older; mortality is the constant.” Gilmour elaborates, “We spent a load of time during and after lockdown talking about and thinking about those kind of things.”
Polly has also found the experience of working with Charlie Andrew liberating, “He wants to know what the songs are about, he wants everyone who’s playing on them to have the ideas that are in the lyric informing their playing. I have particularly loved it for that reason.” The album features eight new tracks along with a beautiful reworking of The Montgolfier Brothers’ ‘Between Two Points’ and has artwork and photography by the renowned artist Anton Corbijn. Musicians contributing to the record include GuyPratt & Tom Herbert on bass, Adam Betts, Steve Gadd and Steve DiStanislao on drums, Rob Gentry & Roger Eno on keyboards with string and choral arrangements by Will Gardner.
The title track also features the late Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright, recorded in 2007 at a jam in a barn at David’s house.
Some contributions emerged from the live streams that Gilmour and family performed to a global audience during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021; Romany Gilmour sings, plays the harp and appears on lead vocals on ‘Between Two Points’. Gabriel Gilmour also sings backing vocals. The album’s cover image, photographed and designed by Anton Corbijn, is inspired by a lyric written by Charlie Gilmour for the album’s final song ‘Scattered’.
Of working with his family on ‘Luck and Strange’, David says, “Polly and I have been writing together for over thirty years and the Von Trapped live streams showed the great blend of Romany’s voice and harp-playing and that led us into a feeling of discarding some of the past that I’d felt bound to and that I could throw those rules out and do whatever I felt like doing, and that has been such a joy.”
Of note for Floyd fans: The title track includes an archival performance from Gilmour’s late bandmate Richard Wright.
The debut from Fat Dog, been buzzing off (I suspect it’s their frenetic and scuzzy art-rock-dance-punk-rave business; or maybe it’s just that one of their tracks is called “King Of The Slugs”).
A wild and uncompromising mix of electroclash, industrial and rave aesthetics wrapped around indie instrumentation and garage rock production. Effortlessly fleeting from soaring synth atmospherics into snarling, driving mayhem. Wildly brilliant.
Fat Dog are the most exciting breakthrough band of the past few years, conjurers of the sort of frenzied and wild live shows not seen in the capital for years and now the creators of “Woof”., a brilliant and mind-bending debut album.
A thrilling blend of electro-punk, rock’n’roll snarling, techno soundscapes, industrial-pop and rave euphoria, WOOF. is music for letting go to or, in the words of frontman Joe Love, “screaming-into-a-pillow music”.
the upcoming album ‘WOOF.’ out 6th September on Domino Recordings.
The band’s first fully self-produced and recorded project, “Shake” features some of Sunflower Bean’s heaviest, most immediate, and loudest music to date. Influenced by the doom-laden, heavy metal sound of Black Sabbath the EP is an embrace of rock tropes and excess, and recalls the sonic of the band’s earliest work, “Show Me Your Seven Secrets” and “Human Ceremony”.
The New York trio Sunflower Bean – vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming (she/her), guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen (he/him), and drummer Olive Faber (she/her) release their new EP, “Shake“, via Lucky Number. The band’s first fully self-produced and recorded project,
“Shake” was inspired by our first years as a DIY band, the spirit that birthed us and gave us the chance to have this enduring journey together,”
Sunflower Bean explain of the EP. “We wrote, recorded, engineered, and produced these songs so nothing was filtered through anyone else’s idea of us. We always felt like rock and roll was a feeling, not a sound. But sometimes there is no subverting it or explaining it. We’re now offering it exactly as it occurred to us.”
releases September 27th, 2024
Written by Nick Kivlen, Julia Cumming, and Olive Faber (Sunflower Bean)
After forming on a group trip to Blackpool, Manchester-based quartet Umarells have announced their debut EP ‘One More Day’ via Fear of Missing Out Records. The record circles peaks, plummets, and upside-down turns for a front-row seat on the emotional Big Dipper of life. The faded sparkle of the Blackpool seaside trails through five postcards of smouldering indie-rock on the EP.
via Fear of Missing Out Records
Umarells release their debut EP “One More Day” on 8th November,
Originally released in 1989, “Dr. Feelgood” was a significant step in the career of infamous Sunset Strip rockers Mötley Crüe. On November 22nd , A new lavish 35th anniversary edition of the album, which hit the top spot on the chart and went on to be certified 6x platinum in the United States, will be released via BMG.
Thirty-Five years after its release, “Dr. Feelgood” stands as one of the last great rock record’s of the 1980’s, and one of the greatest rock records of all time. To celebrate the anniversary of “Dr. Feelgood” we’re releasing a Limited Edition Box Set available on LP & CD with the remastered version of the original album, as well as rare demos and live tracks. The box set will also features a 24 page replica tour book with never before seen and never before published live and behind the scenes photos, a replica “Dr.Feelgood” Tour itinerary, poster, patch, backstage pass, live show handbill, press kit, medical envelope and guitar pick.
With five massive hit singles that kept radio and MTV request lines busy, the Dr. Feelgood World Tour saw MÖTLEY CRÜE on the road and in the air on their own private jet for over 2 years. First single “Dr. Feelgood”, with its instantly memorable opening, catchy chorus, and gritty music video set the tone by reaching the top 10 on the US Hot 100 singles chart.
Originally a Top 30 hit upon release, “Kickstart My Heart” went on to become MÖTLEY CRÜE’s most popular landmark track.
From the buzz saw intro to the cheating-death lyrics and music video shot in a rare return to a club show at the world famous Whisky-a-go-go in Hollywood, it has now logged well over 1.5 Billion streams and can be heard nearly every day in movies, commercials, video games and sporting events around the world! The Hot 100 hits kept coming as “Without You” hit #8, “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) reached #19, and final single “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.)” was accompanied by an music video capturing the fan excitement of a live CRÜE show.
“It’s very depressing to me that we are still dealing with the same issues we were dealing with 40 years ago,” says singer Matt Johnson says, noting that many of the themes on classic THE THE songs – alienation, feeling powerless in the face of corporate greed & governments who don’t have the good of the people in mind, the search for connection in an increasingly distanced world – are as relevant today as they were in the 1980s. With the turmoil of the last decade, it’s good to have Matt & The The back.
‘Ensoulment’ is the first The The album in a quarter century & comes 8 years after Johnson reactivated the band following 17 years of hibernation. Those recent years have been both tumultuous & prolific…
Matt’s brother, Andrew (Andy Dog), whose artwork has graced many The The albums, died in 2016 and inspired 2017 single “We Can’t Stop What’s Coming.” More activity followed: “The InertiaVariations” documentary, Radio Cineola broadcasts, and then the 2018 The Comeback Special world tour. With a stable line-up of The The, including long time collaborators James Eller (bass), DC Collard (keyboards), Earl Harvin (drums), and Barrie Cadogan (lead guitar),
Johnson began work on the new album only to be sidelined by 2020, which, in addition to the COVID pandemic, found him in the hospital with an acute throat infection that gave him a “close shave with the grim reaper” that could’ve also taken his voice.
All this, plus Brexit and many UK and US elections, added to the flavor of “Ensoulment.” Working again with producer Warne Livesay, with whom he made “Infected” and “Mind Bomb”, it has all the hope, humour, and paranoia, the scope and intimacy, and the way with melody you expect from a The The album. “Left is right / black is white / inside out / hope is doubt,” he sings on the album’s opening song “Cognitive Dissident,” and it’s like nothing has changed.
Matt Johnson said via Zoom this summer about about “Ensoulment”, The The’s upcoming tour, his relationship with New York, climbing out onto one of The Chrysler Building’s iconic eagles for the “I Saw the Light” video in 1995, and how the more things change the more they stay the same. It should also be noted that, while specifics of the upcoming US election were not mentioned,
The lyrics for this song were written from Matt Johnson’s hospital bed under the influence of morphine, whilst recovering from a life-saving operation. As fate would have it, Johnson’s weeks in hospital had nothing to do with Covid, but occurred at precisely the time Covid reached crisis proportions, making for an even more surreal ordeal. The discordant interplay between horns and fiddle is redolent of Johnson’s hallucinogenic, surreal experience, which he tried to emulate by asking the musicians to improvise over the track, without hearing the other’s contribution, as he manipulated the sounds in real time. ‘Linoleum Smooth To The Stockinged Foot’ is unique in that it does not feature any of the core band members apart from Johnson on vocals, guitar and bass, plus guest musicians Sonya Cullingford on fiddle, Terry Edwards on horns, Gillian Glover providing backing vocals, and hand claps from percussionist Danny Cummings. Co-produced by Matt Johnson and Warne Livesey.
‘Some Days I Drink My Coffee By The Grave Of William Blake’ is the 3rd single from “Ensoulment”, The The’s first studio album in a quarter century. It is a song Matt Johnson had been trying to write for many years but never managed to finish – until last year. It belongs to the family of songs he has written about London, including ‘Perfect’, ‘Flesh & Bones’, ‘Heartland’, ‘The Beat(en) Generation’, ‘Helpline Operator’, ‘Pillar Box Red’ and others. The song is co-produced by Matt Johnson and Warne Livesey and features Matt Johnson on vocals and acoustic guitar; Barrie Cadogan on electric guitar and backing vocals; DCCollard on keyboards; James Eller on bass; Earl Harvin on drums; Sonya Cullingford on fiddle; Gillian Glover on backing vocals. “I have often drunk my coffee by the grave of William Blake “– though these days there are actually two gravestones dedicated to him in the small dissenters’ cemetery that he was thrown into when he died. On and off over the last 40 years I have lived close by and have always found it an inspiring place to sit and meditate upon life. Nostalgia is part of the human condition and change is inevitable in our lives and in the world around us. Large capital cities such as London often amplify the sense of change, although one thing that never seems to change is the cynicism of those in power”– Matt Johnson
“Ensoulment” will be released on 6th September (Cinéola / earMUSIC)
Prolific singer songwriter Glenn Donaldson is back with a new album as The Reds, Pinks & Purples. It’s titled “The World Doesn’t Need Another Band” and it’s out now as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. Donaldson notes it’s made up of “mostly brand new songs and a few remixes of previous singles that felt like they fit with this set.”
The previously released singles include “My Toxic Friend” and “New Market Space,” and other charmingly glum songs include “Unloveable Losers,” “Don’t Dream Alone” and the title track. Glenn’s been allowing a little more noise, not to mention real drums, into his strummy sound earworms, and on first listen it’s sounding quite good. “Statues in the park,” Glenn sings on the opening track, “They always look sad to me.”
Some brand new songs and a few remixes of previous singles that felt like they fit with this set.
The Fat Angel Sings 